Weekly Reading

A Population Reference Bureau (PRB) policy brief considers several methods of integrating population, health, and environment initiatives in Uganda, citing the Ruhiira Millennium Village Project and the Conservation Through Public Health program as successful examples. Also new from PRB: Farzaneh (Nazy) Roudi explains that Iran’s “youth bulge, along with changes in women’s fertility and reproductive health, provide a backdrop for understanding Iran’s current political instability.”



In “Military vs. Climate Security: Mapping the Shift From the Bush Years to the Obama Era,” Miriam Pemberton of the Institute for Policy Studies compares U.S. government spending on climate change and military, arguing for dedicating more resources to climate security.



A new report from Global Witness reveals that all main warring parties in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo—including rebel groups and members of the Congolese national army—are heavily involved in the mineral trade in North and South Kivu provinces.



In the Spring 2009 edition of The New Atlantis, Kendra Okonski asks if water is a human right, while Travis Kavulla looks at “Aids Relief and Moral Myopia” in Africa, arguing that the Western public-health lobby “must realize that HIV has a social dimension that must be addressed.”